Thirty-four old Chandrika Tamang resigned from a corporate career and realized her long-cherished dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
Currently, she owns the fashion brand CDK that is making waves in the market. CDK produces contemporary Bhutanese textiles.
Chandrika trained a month in fashion designing in India. As a child, she was very passionate about making and designing things of her own.
After resigning from her previous job, she made and designed clothes and accessories from home and she sold the products.
Chandrika started her business in October 2016 and runs it from a small studio and a shop in town.
She was inspired to come up with her own line of designer clothing to fill up the void in the market for Bhutanese contemporary clothing.
“I am also simply doing what I love most,” she said.
She designs clothes and accessories and has a seamstress to help her. Accessories include hand bags, clutch, key hanger, scarf and necklace.
According to her, she makes Bhutanese contemporary designs very simple and wearable. She also works mostly with hand-woven raw silk and cotton and also raw silk fabrics from India where she does black print on them and natural dyes. She gets her raw materials from the local market.
In the long term, she feels that her business will preserve Bhutanese textile.
Recently, she took a loan of Nu 1mn from the Loden foundation. “It has helped me to work harder and on a bigger scale.”
Chandrika plans to open a home décor collection and she has other business plans but she does not want to declare them right now before they are implemented.
Her business caters to markets in third countries through EMS service, Bhutan Post.
“Soon we will market our products online,” she said.
In the beginning, Chandrika had difficulty mobilizing a team of skilled tailors and weavers and finances was a major challenge. But for now, things are running smoothly.
CDK products range from Nu 1,000 to Nu 30,000.
She has five permanent employees and 18 daily wages weavers.
Dechen Dolkar from Thimphu
